Gameboy
by WhoMuse
Summary: Jack and Ianto play a game in Jack's office, with an ominous-sounding "forfeit" on the line for Ianto if he loses. Jack cheats. Ianto's in trouble. Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Owen, The Stopwatch. Rated M for perviness.


Jack liked games. Adored them, in fact. This, Ianto decided, would be his way back in. All he needed was the right opportunity to propose a sufficiently intriguing game, and then he would find out just what was what between himself and Captain Jack Harkness. They'd fallen so neatly back into their Demanding Boss/Exemplary Assistant roles after the recent unfortunate (unfortunate? catastrophic, more like) series of events; and it had happened so naturally that Ianto couldn't help but wonder if there was another relationship that they could pick up as well. So he waited, patiently, for the right time to find out.

Of course, it all depended on whether Jack wanted to pick things up again. A big "if", that. Still, Ianto was quietly confident that his proposal would be well-received. He had been, of late, picking up hints that perhaps *that* part of their life might not be over, after all, if he didn't want it to be. All too often, now, Ianto had the sense that Jack was watching him when he thought Ianto wasn't paying attention. When Ianto would look around, Jack would be busy with something else, but Ianto thought he could still feel where that intense blue-eyed gaze had been fixed on the back of his neck, or on his snug trousers.

Then there was the way Jack's fingers had brushed the inside of Ianto's wrist when Ianto handed him a plate of scones with last Tuesday's tea. The barest whisper of a caress, it had sent chills all the way up Ianto's arm and into his shoulder, causing him to bite down hard on his lip to keep from dropping the plate in surprise. Jack hadn't said a word to him; indeed, had gone on talking to Gwen like he wasn't even there, but it was the strongest signal Ianto had received in a long time.

The strange thing was this had all been so subtle, which was nothing like it had been the first time around, when their mutual needs (though these were not the same needs) had caused them to come together quickly, roughly, and with little fanfare. It was strange because Captain Jack wasn't much known for being subtle, especially on his home turf. Ianto thought he knew the reason for the change, however, and it made him feel... weird. Jack, death-defying, time-traveling, charismatic-to-the-power-of-infinity-Jack, was wary. Wary of him. Ianto thought maybe he should feel smug about this, but he mostly hated it.

When he, Torchwood's Prodigal Son, had returned after the CyberWoman debacle, Jack had set the tone immediately for how things would be between them-barking out orders which Ianto carried out to the letter, then completely ignoring him until there was another task to be done. Ianto was to be an officeboy to Jack, then, nothing more. It hurt, more than he thought it would, but he understood. He was grateful to be allowed in the Hub in any capacity. Hell, he was grateful to be alive at all, and not wandering the Cardiff docks wondering who he was and how he'd got there. He'd barely been a person to them before, but he had been trusted, and now he wasn't even that. Fine, he didn't deserve it.

Then, wonderfully, miraculously, it wasn't long before they DID seem to trust him again, and even warm up to him. Gwen and Tosh, especially, but Jack as well. Owen still took the mickey out of him whenever he got a chance but that wasn't any different from how he'd ever acted and Ianto expected nothing less. (Ianto figured that if Owen _were_ to suddenly start being nice to him, he'd know he'd irrevocably blown it and was probably minutes away from being Retconned. Plus, it would be really creepy.)

At any rate, Ianto found himself being trained on more equipment, even allowed to go out in the field at times. Perhaps Jack had realized that, like a misbehaving schoolboy, Ianto would benefit from more responsibility, rather than more punishment. Whatever the reason, Ianto thrived in his new roles, approaching every task with the same combination of enthusiasm and attention to detail he brought to everything he did. And without his great secret weighing him down, he felt freer than he had in ages. He was still in mourning, yes, so much so that a random song on the radio could cause him to break down into tears within seconds, but he also felt somehow... lighter.

Now it was time to find out if one more thing could be salvaged from the wreck he'd made of his life; their lives.

It just figured that when the opportunity came, it presented itself in the dank and chilly room containing the morgue vaults, right over the dead body of one of their team members. It was far from a romantic spot, but then, it wasn't romance, exactly, that Ianto was proposing, so that was all right. He looked up from his clipboard where he was filling out Suzie's death certificate to find that Jack had arrived to thank him for taking care of that unpleasant task; Ianto had demurred that it was his job, implicitly making it clear there was nothing around Torchwood that he wouldn't do.

Now that he had Jack's attention, it was time.

"If you're interested, I've still got that stopwatch."

"So?"

"Well. Think about it. Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch." Ianto's tone was matter-of-fact, but a tiny smile bloomed on his lips.

Jack lazily rolled his head, tilted it back, and grinned. He WAS thinking about it.

"Oh yeah." Jack chuckled and looked Ianto right in the eyes. "I can think of a few."

_'Gotcha!' _Ianto thought, heart leaping. But he merely smiled slightly wider and his tone was as deadpan as ever when he pointed out, "There's quite a list."

They could have been discussing next weeks food requisitions. Or at least Ianto could have been. Not Jack. His eyes blazed and he snapped into command mode.

"I'll send the others home early. See you in my office in ten."

"That's ten minutes..." Ianto affirmed, clicking the button on top of the stopwatch "and counting."

Jack was already heading to his office, but Ianto, being Ianto, couldn't leave the job unfinished. A quick question, a terrible answer: "Death by Torchwood." Ianto was fairly certain that was what had gone down on Lisa' death certificate too. But he wasn't going to dwell on that now. Today was going to be about being alive.

And games.

Outside Jack's office, Ianto took a deep breath, smoothed down the lapels of his already immaculate jacket, straightened his tie, opened the door, and strode in.

Jack, clad in his shirtsleeves and bracers, was leaning casually against the front of his desk, arms folded. His eyes were diamond-bright with excitement and his lips were cocked in a confident half-smile tinged with something positively feral that made Ianto's knees weak. In this position they were exactly eye-to-eye and Ianto resisted the sudden urge to look down, away, anywhere but at Jack. Instead, he lifted his chin and locked eyes with the Captain.

"Give it to me," Jack said.

Thank god Ianto was cool under pressure or that line alone might have broken him. Damn, he'd missed Jack. But he _was_ cool under pressure and it's one reason Jack had found him such a good... playmate... in the first place. Within a millisecond he'd figured out what Jack wanted and tossed the stopwatch to the older man. Jack caught it one-handed.

"Looks like the same one," Jack observed.

"Of course it is," Ianto replied, the barest hint that he might be offended at the suggestion that he'd swapped out the watches in his tone. Oh, the game was on, alright. And though Ianto had initiated it, it was quickly becoming apparent who was in charge.

Jack flipped the stopwatch high up into the air and caught it. "What was your best time again?"

"What?" Ianto, surprised by seeing his prized possession being used so casually, slipped. Just a bit.

"Your best time. Or have you forgotten?" Jack, sounding disappointed.

"Four minutes, fifty-eight seconds, sir" Ianto returned.

"It's been awhile. Are you sure?"

"Positive. I have quite a head... for numbers, sir." That was two "sir's" in under a minute, but it fit, didn't it?

Jack ignored the double-entendre. "You're going to beat it. Today. Here. Now."

Another double-entendre and Jack's matter-of-fact, no-questions-broked order sent the blood rushing from Ianto's head so fast he felt dizzy. But he was Ianto, he had to ask a question. Had to.

"Or?" he returned, eyebrow raised.

Jack raised both of his in return. "Break your record and you'll get a reward. Fail to do so, and you'll pay a forfeit."

Ianto swallowed, hard. Jack's forfeits were legendary. He should know. So were the rewards, for that matter.

Jack held up the watch. "Ready?

"Yes."

"On my signal then..."

Ianto closed his eyes, readied his hands. He hadn't had a lot of time to prepare, but just being this close to Jack and his diabolically intoxicating Fifty-first Century pheromones, not to mention having Jack scrutinizing him like he wanted to eat him up with a spoon, was getting him so hot he thought he just might be able to pull this off... he'd unzip his fly with one hand and lick the other one a few times; spit wasn't the most effective lube because one tended to need a lot of it, but hopefully this wouldn't last too long and...

"Oh, and Ianto?"

Ianto's eyes flew open, wide.

"The clothes come off first. All of them."

Ianto gasped. "But that's not f..."

"Go." Jack clicked the button on the stopwatch.

Ianto went. His hands flew to his jacket front to release the two buttons there, then to his collar to unknot his tie while his left heel dug into the side of his right dress shoe, loosening it enough so that he could kick it away. His nimble fingers danced down the front of his shirt undoing buttons as they went, as his right heel freed his left foot of its covering, which he also kicked away. A quick shrug and he was out of both shirt and jacket, earning an appreciative grin from Jack for both the deftness of the moment and the view of muscular chest and shoulders that it afforded.

Ianto shot Jack one blazing, defiant look and glanced down to undo his belt buckle and zip. The time for modesty long past (and getting further away with every ticking second of the stopwatch), Ianto dropped his trousers and pants simultaneously and stepped out of them, wondering if he looked as graceless as he felt.

He shivered for a moment in his socks; thought, _'Not these too, surely?'_ Then realized that this was JACK and "all of them off" meant _all _of them off, even if the tiles-over-concrete floor of the Hub was every bit as cold as it looked.

Ianto tucked his clothes under his arm and lifted his right leg, knee bent (which no doubt afforded Jack a downright pornographic view of his crotch) and peeled off his sock (charcoal gray silk, textured), then switched legs and repeated the process. He straightened, still holding his clothes, already half-erect under Jack's admiring gaze. How long had that taken? Not more than thirty seconds surely, he could still win, he was so damn ready, he could beat Jack at his own game even though Jack cheated... but then Ianto ran into a problem.

His clothes. All he had to do was toss them on the floor and get down to business... but Ianto had this... thing... about dropping clothes on the floor. Always had. Maybe it was because it was his father had been a tailor and had taught him since he was a wee lad to have the utmost respect for clothes (_'Clothes make the man, son, not to mention they put bread on the table,')_; maybe it was because he really _was_ borderline OCD, which had been Owen's not-very-professional-but-declared-loudly-on-several-occasions armchair diagnosis of him, but Ianto just could... not... drop... his... clothes... on... the... floor.

And Jack bloody well knew it, damn him.

Ianto looked at the pile of clothes on his arm, shot a withering glare at Jack (who was now looking incredibly smug) and dashed to the other side of the room where he proceeded to fold everything neatly and place it on a chair, save for the jacket, which he hung over the back. He'd even stopped to scoop up his shoes and slid them under the chair as well. Another thirty seconds gone, and with it, any margin for victory he might have had. Not even in his most frenzied, hopped-up home ministrations had he beat a time like that (well, not since he was a teenager, anyway).

Ianto straightened and turned around to face Jack, his neck and cheeks flushed, hands trembling a little, crazy ideas racing through his head. He could leave, it was technically his game after all. Of course, that would be the end of any future fun and games with Jack Harkness, he was pretty sure. He could call foul on Jack for cheating and demand-what? That they start over? Jack would laugh in his face. No, this, _this_ was the game-getting outwitted by Jack-and if he was going to lose he was going to do it with dignity. And put on a hell of a show while doing so.

With three strides and a small smile tilting his lips, Ianto was back in front of Jack, standing with his legs apart. He raised his right hand and made a great show of licking it from his palm to the tips of his fingers, sucking on each finger in turn. Then he did it again, with more tongue. Jack remained impassive, arms still folded, glancing from Ianto to the stopwatch in a bored manner-but Ianto caught the hitch in his breathing and the way his hips shifted ever-so-slightly against the desk, and smiled inwardly.

Ianto wrapped his hand around his cock and gasped as he got hard, fast. He liked a bit of physical foreplay as much as the next person but sometimes a mind-game like this was even better. Here he was, standing naked in an office that anyone could walk into at any time, being made to masturbate for his boss, and yet instead of feeling powerless he suddenly realized that he _actually had control over the whole thing._The rather desperate way that Jack, despite his casual posture, was looking at him made that clear. It was quite the head-rush. And the aphrodisiac.

Ianto moved his hand up and down his cock, which Jack could now not seem to tear his gaze from, and threw back his head and moaned low in his throat. Then he slid his other hand across his thigh and used it to cup his balls. Through his half-lidded eyes he could see Jack shift again against the desk and realized Jack's trousers were probably feeling quite snug right now.

Ianto allowed a blissful smile to spread across his lips and closed his eyes, shutting Jack out so that he could concentrate on his rhythm. God, he was close, really, really close... he just needed something to push him over the edge...

And then he had it. He could still win. It seemed most improbable, impossible, even, but Ianto had a stopwatch in his head that was every bit as accurate as the vintage piece Jack was clutching, and it was sending out a small alarm that he still had a chance; in fact it had been doing so for some time but that awareness had gotten lost in the more physical sensations that he was enjoying, but it was there now. He could still win.

With a long, low moan, Ianto came.

Pleasure jolted through his body, causing him to shudder all over. He was hyper-aware of the heat coming off his cock versus with the cool air on the rest of his skin (and his feet were damn near frozen)-but he was also aware of Jack's blazing presence a few feet away-and that Jack had stopped the stopwatch at the precise moment that he should have.

After an indefinite period of time (even the stopwatch in his mind had mercifully shut down at this point), Ianto opened his eyes. He caught Jack's gaze, cocked his head to the side, and inquired, "Well?"

Jack made a great show of holding the watch up and peering at it.

"Ianto Jones. You achieved a time of..." Jack intoned, and then paused theatrically, for all the world like a cheesy game show host drawing out the moment of truth. All that was missing was a dramatic swell of music.

Ianto, feeling too good to be provoked, released his softening cock and put his hands on his hips, waiting.

"Five minutes, two seconds. I'm sorry, but you lose."

Five seconds? After all that he'd lost by a mere five seconds? It was a good time, all things considered...but it wasn't good enough. For either of them. Time, with all its precise, fixed increments, was one of the few things in the universe you couldn't fudge (at least if you were a human being and not a Time Lord, whatever that was) and that's precisely why Ianto liked it. Usually. Bullocks.

"What now?" Ianto inquired, proud of how steady his voice sounded.

Jack rolled his hips in rather obscene way. "Now you get to watch how a master does it." Without warning, he lobbed the stopwatch back at Ianto, who caught it just in time.

Ianto smiled a bit wolfishly. "I get to watch you? That's hardly a Herculean task."

"Oh, you don't get off that easy." Jack nodded at the nearby end table, where an espresso service-four little china cups and small china coffeepot-was set up.

Ianto followed his gaze and frowned, not getting it.

"You want me... to make coffee too? Really, Jack, I do that whenever you ask. And even when you don't."

"Not this time. You're not making anything. This time, you're drinking it. When and where I tell you to." Jack followed an even more obscene, if possible, thrust of his hips.

Ianto's formidable brows narrowed, and then his eyes widened and his cheeks flushed anew as he got it.

"Jack," Ianto said, voice barely a whisper.

"Get the pot and bring it over here."

Oh, this was mental, even for Jack... but orders were orders, and Ianto was nothing if not obedient, even when things got very strange-and things did tend to get strange around Torchwood. Ianto took a deep breath, focused his mind on the task at hand-such a simple task, really, even if shivers were running down his spine and his cock was stirring again. He fetched the pot and went to stand by Jack.

"Kneel down," Jack said, with his usual lack of finesse.

Ianto swallowed again, and dropped to his knees. Without prompting, he readied the stopwatch in one hand and held the coffeepot up in the other.

"Ah, you catch on fast," Jack said, all smiles and approval. "Good boy." He ruffled Ianto's hair with his fingers.

Ianto bowed his head, enjoying the sensation of Jack's fingers threading through his hair. But then he raised his head up and fixed Jack's half-lidded gaze with his own.

"Fair's fair, Jack. _Everything off_ first."

"I'm way ahead of you," Jack said. "Go."

Ianto clicked the button on the top of the stopwatch, and marveled as Jack divested himself of his shirt, bracers, trousers, boots and socks (cotton knit, not nearly as nice as Ianto's) with near super-human speed, then grasped his cock and started to work.

Ianto sat back on his heels and moaned involuntarily-watching, just watching without being allowed to touch-Jack was harder than he thought it would be. He longed to grasp that cock in his own hands, or better yet, take it in his mouth and make Jack his, really his... but Ianto had a job to do and that was minding the stopwatch, wasn't it? And the coffeepot.

He couldn't resist the urge to count things down, though, and Jack was in no position to stop him, was he?

"One minute, thirty seconds," he intoned.

Jack had been raking his eyes over him, no doubt using Ianto's naked body as masturbatory material, but at this he shut his eyes. Ianto suppressed a grin.

"Two minutes."

"Two minutes, thirty seconds," he added precisely half a minute later, barely keeping the glee out of his a show Jack was putting on for him. The always-in-control Captain was looking positively disheveled and sweating a bit. Ianto filed this image away in his brain for later use. Maybe years of later use.

"Three minutes, two seconds," Ianto said. "Three minutes, forty-three seconds." He had just thought of switching up the increments randomly, and it made him giggle a little. Jack wouldn't be expecting that... not from him.

"Four minutes, one... ohhhh. Four minutes, two seconds, to Captain Jack Harkness!"

Jack came with a shout, and Ianto had the coffee pot ready. He didn't miss a drop.

* * *

><p>The next morning, someone wasn't having a good day.<p>

"Page loading! Are you kidding me? Fucking page has been "loading" for the last five minutes! How long does it bloody take?"

Owen slammed his fist down on his desk in frustration, which only hurt his hand and did nothing to get him to the information he needed. Even under Tosh's excellent ministrations, the Hub's state-of-the-art computer system was still connected to the Twenty-first Century Internet, with all its foibles. Even the mighty Torchwood couldn't fix the Internet, which seemed determined to crash whenever Owen needed it the most.

Owen shoved his chair away from his desk, stood, and cast around for someone to blame. Unfortunately Jack, Gwen and Tosh had all gone out to investigate more reports of giant (alien) rats at the docks. Owen, who had had quite enough of the rats for the time being, volunteered to stay behind and pull up all the information he could glean about sightings of giant rats worldwide. Normally that would be Ianto's job but...

Ianto! Where the hell was he? Owen hadn't seem him all morning, which was unusual. Usually Teaboy was the first one in, with coffee on hand for all of them, in their favorite mug, just how they liked it, when they walked in. Owen glanced at the lukewarm tea-that he'd made HIMSELF-by his computer monitor (which was still "loading" his page) and ground his teeth. Oh, someone was going to pay, alright. And now he knew who it would be.

"Ianto!" Owen called.

No answer.

"Ia..." Owen broke off as he caught sight of Ianto on the walkway above. "'Bout time you showed up, Teaboy. I could really use a cuppa..."

Ianto was clutching a little white cup and paying no attention to Owen

"Ianto!" Owen yelled. "I'm talking to you!"

Ianto took a sip from the cup and then drifted (there was no better word for it) around the corner and disappeared from view.

"IANTO JONES! Get your bony arse back here now!" Owen bellowed, somehow already knowing in his gut it wouldn't do any good.

It didn't.

Owen uttered some choice oaths and kicked the leg of his desk, hard. And then covered his own with his hand to keep from crying out in pain and making an idiot of himself.

Alone in the Hub's galley kitchen, Ianto swirled the cup under his nose like it was fine wine. He'd followed Jack's first forfeit to the letter-which was to drink from it in another member of the team's presence.

There were three more forfeits left-and three more sips to go with it.

Ianto couldn't wait.


End file.
